


Equal, Opposite, and Exacting

by Carbon65



Series: Limitations, Liabilities and Fine Print [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Hypoglycemia, Science references, Sleep is awesome, Superheroes, This is all a bad metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2489009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are all sorts of stupid adages about how power comes with responsibility and absolute power corrupts. Really, though, he thinks it comes down to three things: physics, physiology and character. He does this because he can. He tries to save people because he can.  But, he’s slowing learning that this comes with a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equal, Opposite, and Exacting

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the wonderful Pi-on-a-skateboard.
> 
> Also thank you to my mystery beta.

There are all sorts of stupid adages about how power comes with responsibility and absolute power corrupts. Really, though, he thinks it comes down to three things: physics, physiology and character.

He does this because he can. He tries to save people _because_ he can. And so, he makes the choice to push himself, to fight for himself and his city and his mother. Because he may not be able to stop ordinary things from tearing apart families, but he can damn well fight against as many threats as he can.

There’s nothing like the feeling of the wind in his hair as he runs. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of freedom.  
But, he’s slowing learning that freedom comes with a price.

...

The low blood sugar thing is just the beginning. That, he thinks he can manage. At least, he imagines with a little bit of practice, he’ll figure something out. Millions of diabetics do it, right?

The thing is that his metabolism runs high. His metabolism is constantly running high. So, he doesn't just need the eight-hundred odd tacos, he also has started to need to sleep with juice boxes next to his bed.

Waking up with his heart pounding harder than when he’s run a marathon, entirely disoriented with his hands shaking isn’t easy. Being woken up by firemen in an ambulance because he (luckily?) burns popcorn the same night his blood sugar drops so low that he seizes? That really sucks.

For a while Caitlin makes him wear a monitor.  
He passes out before the electronics can track his descent into hypoglycemia. 

Then, Caitlin makes Cisco move in with him.  
Cisco sings in the shower and he snores.

...

When he’s running, he’s moving faster than his nerves can conduct. It’s part of why he keeps overshooting his targets. But, over shooting by a few feet isn’t the worst part. He can stub his toe a few miles back and miss it. Or, he can run out of fuel, and not realize it.

...There are also the stress fractures. He got his first set on that run to Starling City just after he woke up. He didn’t realize what he was doing. He went to bed just fine... and woke up with his feet ballooning and painful. Caitlin says there’s nothing she can do, it’s just another thing he’ll have to learn to live with. But, it stings (literally) that the shoes which were fine in the morning are now two sizes too small, and that he sleeps with his feet wrapped in layers of ace bandages and ice.

...

The worst thing, though, the worst thing are the days that everything catches up. The first time it happens, he thinks he’s dying. He tries to get out of bed on still tender feet on a Saturday after a particularly hard week, and found that he could barely make it around his bungalow before he needed to sleep.  
So, he curls up, and went back to sleep.

The problem is that when he tries again a few hours later, he gets the same reaction. He is just wiped out.

Eventually, he makes it out of bed long enough to get something to eat (probably not as much as he needs, but something, and then he goes back to sleep.

As he works harder, the days in bed... he doesn’t want to call them attacks, although that’s how some people might phrase it... these days in bed become more and more frequent.  
And Cisco starts to notice.  
And Joe starts to notice.  
And Iris starts to notice.

Joe wants to know why someone who can run fast enough to leave a sonic boom in his wake ends up in bed with a cold so damn much.  
And Iris wants to know why he’s avoiding her.  
And, shocking, at least to some, Cisco wants to know when he’s going to wash his damn cereal bowl.  
(He’ll do it on a day he doesn’t need to both save the world and can get out of bed.)

And, honestly, the whole thing scares him. What if... what if something like this happens when he’s in the middle of saving someone, and he collapses and then he can’t get back up again?  
What if he fails to save someone because he can’t get out of bed?  
What if he loses his job because they think he’s unreliable?  
...What if he _is_ unreliable and this is all in his head?

Of course, eventually Cisco figures it out. A computer genius who spends way too much of his free time watching videos of cats on the internet eventually notices his roommate canceling plans and staying in bed. And then Caitlin gets called. And then Dr. Wells. And then Joe.

The science talk flies around his bedroom and he can’t follow it. (He’s sitting in his boxers and pretty much nothing else, propped up against pillows because lifting his head is too much work.) Joe looks just as bewildered, until he disappears.

Joe, of course Joe, is the one who makes him understand. He wakes up with one of his old physics book in his lab, the text for the course they required as a prerequisite to the biology degree he never finished. There’s a sticky note on one of the pages.  
 _HERE _.__

 _ _When he opens the book, he sees what Joe meant.__

 _ _3\. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Maybe this isn’t want Newton meant when he penned it, but it looks like the cost of being the fastest man alive is that there will be days when he will be the fastest asleep man. 

...

__

The best thing about this whole thing is saving people. The worst... the worst is the feeling that someday, he’s going to be unable to save someone.

**Author's Note:**

> The diabetic girl writes about low blood sugar again. In a new fandom. We are all shocked.  
> So, this might have started as another complaint about late night lows, written while low. But, I promise that I changed it. The bigger inspiration was the idea that being a superhero might be a little bit like having a chronic illness that causes fatigue. There are days no one can even tell you're sick. And then there are days when you can't being to get out of bed. And, sometimes, the only thing you need to flip that switch is a few days (or weeks) of over doing it. 
> 
> ...And I might like my super heroes with limits.


End file.
